You especially, my dearest brethren in the priesthood, be you at once the best examples of patriotism and the best supporters of public order. On the field of battle you have been magnificent. The King and the army admire the intrepidity of our military chaplains in face of death, their charity at the work of the ambulance. Your Bishops are proud of you. You have suffered greatly. You have endured much calumny. But be patient; history will do you justice. I today bear my witness for you.
Wherever it has been possible I have questioned our people, our clergy, and particularly a considerable number of priests who had been deported to German prisons, but whom a principle of humanity, to which I gladly render homage, has since set at liberty. Well, I affirm, upon my honor, and I am prepared to assert upon faith of my oath, that until now I have not met a single ecclesiastic, secular or regular, who had once incited civilians to bear arms against the enemy. All have loyally followed the instructions of their Bishops, given in the early days of August, to the effect that they were to use their moral influence over the civil population so that order might be preserved and military regulations observed.
I exhort you to persevere in this ministry of peace, which is for you the sanest form of patriotism; to accept with all your hearts the privations you have to endure; to simplify still further, if it is possible, your way of life. One of you who is reduced by robbery and pillage to a state bordering on total destitution, said to me lately: "I am living now as I wish I had lived always."
Multiply the efforts of your charity, corporal and spiritual. Like the great Apostle, do you endure daily the cares of your Church, so that no man shall suffer loss and you not suffer loss, and no man fall and you not burn with zeal for him. Make yourselves the champions of all those virtues enjoined upon you by civic honor as well as by the Gospel of Christ.
"Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever modest, whatsoever just, whatsoever holy, whatsoever lovely, whatsoever of good fame, if there be any virtue, if any praise of discipline, think on these things." So may the worthiness of our lives justify us, my most dear colleagues, in repeating the noble claim of St. Paul: "The things which ye have learned and received and heard and seen in me, these do ye, and the God of Peace shall be with you."
Let us continue then, dearest brethren, to pray, to do penance, to attend holy mass, and to receive holy communion for the sacred intention of our dear country.... I recommend parish priests to hold a funeral service on behalf of our fallen soldiers on every Saturday.
Money, I know well, is scarce with you all. Nevertheless, if you have little, give of that little for the succor of those among your fellow-countrymen who are without shelter, without fuel, without sufficient bread. I have directed my parish priests to form for this purpose in every parish a relief committee. Do you second them charitably and convey to my hands such alms as you can save from your superfluity, if not from your necessities, so that I may be the distributer to the destitute who are known to me.
Our distress has moved the other nations. England, Ireland, and Scotland, France, Holland, the United States, Canada, have vied with each other in generosity for our relief. It is a spectacle at once most mournful and most noble. Here again is a revelation of the Providential wisdom which draws good from evil. In your name, my brethren, and in my own, I offer to the Governments and the nations that have succored us the assurance of our admiration and our gratitude.
With a touching goodness, our Holy Father Benedict XV. has been the first to incline his heart toward us. When, a few moments after his election, he deigned to take me in his arms, I was bold enough there to ask that the first Pontifical benediction he spoke should be given to Belgium, already in deep distress through the war. He eagerly closed with my wish, which I knew would also be yours. Today, with delicate kindness, his Holiness has decided to renounce the annual offering of Peter's Pence from Belgium.
In a letter dated on the beautiful festival of the Immaculate Virgin, Dec. 8, he assures us of the part he bears in our sufferings. He prays for us, calls down upon our Belgium the protection of Heaven, and exhorts us to hail in the then approaching advent of the Prince of Peace the dawn of better days. Here is the text of this valued message: